Laser strikes against airplanes now an “epidemic,” says FBI

"I had temporary blindness. My eyes were burning," says pilot.

You may not be the kind of person who gets his kicks by standing at the end of a runway and firing a small laser into the cockpit of jets during their takeoffs and landings—but plenty of other people are. In 2005, the FBI only heard about 283 such incidents; this year, it expects to record 3,700.

In an official blog post about the topic, the FBI quotes federal air marshal George Johnson saying that the laser attacks have reached an "epidemic level." Things have gotten so bad that the FBI has created a special group to address the issue, one with the unwieldy name "Laser Strike Working Group National Initiative" (which could use a laser strike of its own).

In its blog post, the FBI quotes Captain Robert Hamilton of the Air Line Pilots Association, who describes what it's like to take a direct cockpit hit from a laser beam. "I had temporary blindness. My eyes were burning. It caused disorientation, and it was distracting," he said.

In 2011, a Boston court gave a 52-year old man three years in jail for shining a power laser at planes and helicopters in the area. Here's how our own Matt Lasar summed up the incident after reading the court docs:

On the night of December 8, 2007, Massachusetts State Police Sergeant Timothy Riley and State Trooper Michael Basteri were flying a helicopter over Boston Harbor. It was about 9:30pm and they were escorting a tanker carrying liquid natural gas. The chopper hovered over the Mystic River somewhere between the Distrigas facility in Everett and the Tobin Bridge.

Suddenly Trooper Basteri saw the laser—a powerful green beam coming from the shore. It snaked across the water and up towards the helicopter's cockpit. Basteri warned Riley that the blast of light was imminent, and warned him not to look at it.

Riley in turn quickly struggled to bank the copter to the right so the beam wouldn't penetrate the vehicle. But the concentrated stream moved too fast. "When the laser beam reached the helicopter it immediately filled the cockpit with an intense bright green light unlike anything either man had experienced before," the affidavit said.

After the beam left their vehicle, Riley and Basteri began trying to track it down. To their alarm, it started shining on landing paths at Logan Airport. They called Logan Airport Tower to alert air traffic control, then received permission from their command to leave the tanker and locate the origin of the threat.

What does it look like when a helicopter tracks down a guy with a laser? The FBI released the video we included at the top of this post to show you exactly what happens. Those caught could face up to five years in jail and up to an $11,000 fine.

Sometimes you have to wonder if they're *trying* to cause an aircraft to crash.

Pentalties for this sort of thing should be heavy-handed. It's assault, except it's on multiple people, including whatever passengers are in the craft, and on the aircraft itself.

I wonder if they could imprint consumer-purchased lasers, similar to how they have serial numbers on confetti spread every time a police officer uses a taser, so they know what device was used. I'm sure the manufacturer(s) could make the laser beam, instead of being steady, flash extremely quickly a unique binary code that can be traced to the purchaser of that particular laser device. It would be too quick for the naked eye and probably not matter for those who are using it (unless you are a researcher requiring a steady laser stream, but then you probably wouldn't be buying consumer-grade equipment, by my guess), and aircraft pilots could equip devices that record the code during these incidents to allow them to track down the perp.

Signs that I play too much Call of Duty: Watching that video, I kept hearing "*tsshh* We got a runner here", then expecting to see them toast the guy.

That aside, I seriously can't begin to understand what would possess someone to do this in the first place? What's the excitement? Are you hoping to cause a crash? I seriously don't understand people sometimes, although I suppose in this case it's a good thing.

Sometimes you have to wonder if they're *trying* to cause an aircraft to crash.

Pentalties for this sort of thing should be heavy-handed. It's assault, except it's on multiple people, including whatever passengers are in the craft, and on the aircraft itself.

I wonder if they could imprint consumer-purchased lasers, similar to how they have serial numbers on confetti spread every time a police officer uses a taser, so they know what device was used.

I'm sure you can come up with idiotic ideas like that, but anyone with a modicum of DIY experience can take apart a bluray burner and have themselves a 2+ watt laser that will do more damage than most consumer lasers.

There are many possible good responses to this problem. Yours isn't one of them.

Most people don't understand how a small beam up close turns into a large still very bright beam far away. They also fail to understand just how far even low power lasers can go...

Let's just hope non of these idiots have the money to buy a S3 Krypton, those thing awesomely dangerous. I have an 1w S3 arctic and it came with a paper written in giant letters saying not to point it at aircraft or satellites. Which can be a little hard when you start using the galaxy lens like a flashlight in the woods.

That seems like a weird mix of penalties? $11,000 and five years in prison seem pretty strikingly different in terms of their severity. Not that I don't think they should go to jail for five or more years, because if you do this, fuck you. Just saying that the fine seems weirdly low for how much jail time

I wonder if they could imprint consumer-purchased lasers, similar to how they have serial numbers on confetti spread every time a police officer uses a taser, so they know what device was used. I'm sure the manufacturer(s) could make the laser beam, instead of being steady, flash extremely quickly a unique binary code that can be traced to the purchaser of that particular laser device. It would be too quick for the naked eye and probably not matter for those who are using it (unless you are a researcher requiring a steady laser stream, but then you probably wouldn't be buying consumer-grade equipment, by my guess), and aircraft pilots could equip devices that record the code during these incidents to allow them to track down the perp.

Interesting idea, but you can make a laser pointer very easily out of the lasers in cd burners, dvd burners, and blu-ray burners that are far stronger than the one in this video and wouldn't have the control you mentioned above. I'm not really sure how you'd protect against this. The device can be purchased or made and it's extremely ubiquitous. Perhaps the airplanes need some type of special coating on the cockpit that doesn't allow this type of light to pass through, or a deterrent system that detects and immediately notifies the closest tower; who then call the police.

What the hell. I'm all for doing stupid crap and not overthinking things, but this takes stupidity to a whole new freaking plateau. No, not even stupidity - this is out-and-out malice, these a-holes are actively interfering with people trying to land planes.

I'm having a really REALLY hard time accepting that there are enough people who are both moronic enough AND psychopathic enough that there were 3700 of these incidents this year, or that the number of incidents has increased over 1000% in seven years. Even with my appallingly low opinion of humanity, the numbers just don't add up. There's just over 5,000 paved airports in the USA, which means that either well over half of them have had incidents (not likely) or people keep hitting the same airport multiple times without getting caught (possible, I guess, but disheartening given how much security theater goes on around airports).

I can only imagine how many kids (punk teens) are doing this, and what they would say when asked what their motivation to doing this was.

In 2011, a Boston court gave a 52-year old man three years in jail for shining a power laser at planes and helicopters in the area.

Why does everyone blame kids? As if kids have a monopoly on stupidity, arrogance, or maliciousness.

Given that the lasers used are high powered. Far above any laser pointer you'd buy at WalMart or Office Depot. You're looking at folks who have enough money to spend a few hundred bucks to over a thousand dollars to play malicious pranks. Most teens are generally not rolling in cash to spend on such an endeavor.

And yes, I think the penalty for this act is nowhere near harsh enough. You could kill hundreds of people if you do end up causing a plane to crash on takeoff or landing. I'm really not seeing what joy people are deriving from doing this.

Seems it should be relatively easy to put some cameras on the airport tower with a full 360 view. Lasers bright enought to cause issues for planes should leave a trail of scattered light that points right back to the source. Using the video feeds and camera geometry, It wouldn't be hard to write some software that could give you the appox lat/lon of any laser flash in the area.

I'm sure you can come up with idiotic ideas like that, but anyone with a modicum of DIY experience can take apart a bluray burner and have themselves a 2+ watt laser that will do more damage than most consumer lasers.

There are many possible good responses to this problem. Yours isn't one of them.

You fail to realize that people with enough brains to have the DIY experience for taking apart a bluray burner are not likely to point the said laser at aircraft.

sidran's idea, actually, is not a bad one. That's how remote controls work. Most idiots who shine laser pointers at aircraft will be too lazy to do anything but buy one on the interwebs. To call this idea "idiotic" is petty and childish.

That seems like a weird mix of penalties? $11,000 and five years in prison seem pretty strikingly different in terms of their severity. Not that I don't think they should go to jail for five or more years, because if you do this, fuck you. Just saying that the fine seems weirdly low for how much jail time

Fines are based on a bizarre formula written in sanskrit and only able to be calculated on a left handed abacus... Direct quote from a superior court judge. }B*)

The only explanation I can think of that isn't insanity or unthinking stupidity is if someone was annoyed at all the aircraft flying around, they might get it in their head to "get back at them" with an annoying laser pointer. Still stupid, grasping at straws, but I feel better if people have reasons for doing stupid shit that I understand.

It truly is a sign that I play farrrr too many shooting games. I kept waiting for the target circle to drop on the figure's head. Then all I could think of was drop a boucing bettie into that bunch standing next to the cars..... Now where is my sniper rifle?

Seems it should be relatively easy to put some cameras on the airport tower with a full 360 view. Lasers bright enought to cause issues for planes should leave a trail of scattered light that points right back to the source. Using the video feeds and camera geometry, It wouldn't be hard to write some software that could give you the appox lat/lon of any laser flash in the area.

You could probably draw a line along which the laser can be, but how would you know how far it is?

That seems like a weird mix of penalties? $11,000 and five years in prison seem pretty strikingly different in terms of their severity. Not that I don't think they should go to jail for five or more years, because if you do this, fuck you. Just saying that the fine seems weirdly low for how much jail time

Fines are based on a bizarre formula written in sanskrit and only able to be calculated on a left handed abacus... Direct quote from a superior court judge. }B*)

I'm sure you're saying this as a joke but honestly I would believe it anyway.

Given that the lasers used are high powered. Far above any laser pointer you'd buy at WalMart or Office Depot. You're looking at folks who have enough money to spend a few hundred bucks to over a thousand dollars to play malicious pranks. Most teens are generally not rolling in cash to spend on such an endeavor.

That's the thing - people are dropping a couple of hundred on a Wicked Laser model just to be incredible douches. >:(

I have the same problem with motivation. I suppose a perp could be thinking in terms of anti-aircraft target practice or some such thing. Maybe even like a kid plinking the neighbor's dog with a BB gun -- because he can. Still, the potential consequences seem so dire for such a simple, thoughtless act.

I'm sure you can come up with idiotic ideas like that, but anyone with a modicum of DIY experience can take apart a bluray burner and have themselves a 2+ watt laser that will do more damage than most consumer lasers.

There are many possible good responses to this problem. Yours isn't one of them.

You fail to realize that people with enough brains to have the DIY experience for taking apart a bluray burner are not likely to point the said laser at aircraft.

sidran's idea, actually, is not a bad one. That's how remote controls work. Most idiots who shine laser pointers at aircraft will be too lazy to do anything but buy one on the interwebs. To call this idea "idiotic" is petty and childish.

I did word that a bit strongly. I blame fighting laser and firearm bans on a regular basis for my vitriol.

But again, sourcing lasers is ridiculously simple. I really don't want to see the CPSC start nuking lasers from orbit along with magnets.

I wonder if they could imprint consumer-purchased lasers, similar to how they have serial numbers on confetti spread every time a police officer uses a taser, so they know what device was used. I'm sure the manufacturer(s) could make the laser beam, instead of being steady, flash extremely quickly a unique binary code that can be traced to the purchaser of that particular laser device. It would be too quick for the naked eye and probably not matter for those who are using it (unless you are a researcher requiring a steady laser stream, but then you probably wouldn't be buying consumer-grade equipment, by my guess), and aircraft pilots could equip devices that record the code during these incidents to allow them to track down the perp.

The powerful lasers people use for this kind of thing (a laser pointer you buy at Wal-Mart is not going to be a threat) are already controlled and restricted, but people but them "illegally" from foreign sites. The tech is too simple, too widespread, and too concealable to be effectively limited. The only realistic solution is making sure everyone understands how dangerous they are, and harshly punishing people who abuse them.

Sometimes you have to wonder if they're *trying* to cause an aircraft to crash.

Pentalties for this sort of thing should be heavy-handed. It's assault, except it's on multiple people, including whatever passengers are in the craft, and on the aircraft itself.

I wonder if they could imprint consumer-purchased lasers, similar to how they have serial numbers on confetti spread every time a police officer uses a taser, so they know what device was used.

I'm sure you can come up with idiotic ideas like that, but anyone with a modicum of DIY experience can take apart a bluray burner and have themselves a 2+ watt laser that will do more damage than most consumer lasers.

There are many possible good responses to this problem. Yours isn't one of them.

Look, anyone who wants to DIY will do so.

I'm talking about people who get these things off WickedLasers (or someplace similar), which generally are of the power of these.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I somehow doubt that a DVD burner's laser will make it that far through the atmosphere.

I can imagine FBI making all non-red laser pointers either require a Driver's License for the sale so that prosecution is just a matter of doing a field investigation on all people in the area who bought one (California, for example, requires a Driver's License for Drug Paraphernalia, or things that can be used as a drug, like Gas Dusters and Pseudoephedra based medicines), or just banning them from civilian use outright.

Not that red lasers aren't guilty of it too... just that green and violet wavelengths have a lot more punch.

Seems it should be relatively easy to put some cameras on the airport tower with a full 360 view. Lasers bright enought to cause issues for planes should leave a trail of scattered light that points right back to the source. Using the video feeds and camera geometry, It wouldn't be hard to write some software that could give you the appox lat/lon of any laser flash in the area.

You could probably draw a line along which the laser can be, but how would you know how far it is?

Not sure what joshv had in mind, but my guess would be where that line intersects ground or a building?

Seems it should be relatively easy to put some cameras on the airport tower with a full 360 view. Lasers bright enought to cause issues for planes should leave a trail of scattered light that points right back to the source. Using the video feeds and camera geometry, It wouldn't be hard to write some software that could give you the appox lat/lon of any laser flash in the area.

You could probably draw a line along which the laser can be, but how would you know how far it is?